


It's complicated

by Trojie



Series: Fics for SPNVerse Challenges [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bunker Fic, Developing Relationship, Domestic Fluff, M/M, OT4, Relationship Negotiation, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-30
Updated: 2013-05-30
Packaged: 2017-12-13 10:24:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/823220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trojie/pseuds/Trojie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events in the little church in the middle of nowhere, Dean, Sam, Kevin and Cas are trying to regroup in the Men of Letters' bunker. Negotiations, breakfast, heartfelt talks and some kind of a movie all happen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's complicated

**Author's Note:**

> Written for SPN_Verse landcomm challenge 2 'My Heart Will Go On', which required us to write either fic or meta reactions to a season finale. I picked S8, because I needed some fluff after that finale. Spoilery for the end of S8. Beta-read by the glorious Yalu <3

It's on the second day after they don't close the gates of Hell that everything starts getting complicated. 

They've got Crowley chained up in the dungeon while they figure out how much of a demon he still is and what the hell to do with him, and Dean's on his way down there with a 1920's vintage magazine about cabinetmaking (what? He's not obligated to actually provide real entertainment) and some food when he hears yelling from one of the little archive rooms on that floor. 

'- just can't believe you sometimes, you think you know what's best for everyone but look at the way you treat yourself -' It's Kevin, voice rough because they kind of forcibly took away the booze but he'd wrecked his throat lining ages before they'd got back, and boy does he sound pissed. 

'I don't understand what the problem is,' says Sam, in a tone Dean recognises as his 'I am pretending I am a rational adult but I'm about to throw a hissy-fit' voice. 'I thought you wanted this to be over, Kevin, I thought you wanted to get out of this life.'

'I do - I mean, I did,' Kevin retorts. Dean goes into stealth mode and creeps around til he can see them through an empty shelving unit - they've left the door to the archive room open, so clearly they wanted an audience (this is a piece of logic Dean's been using to keep an eye on Sam for his whole life). 'But … it can't be over, can it,' he says, a lot quieter. Dean shifts a bit closer. 'And even if it could, it's not worth your life, Sam.'

'Everyone keeps saying that,' Sam growls. 'But it would have been, actually.'

'How can you even say that?'

Kevin's pushed right up into Sam's space now, which is almost funny because Sam's a full head taller than him, but Kevin isn't giving an inch. Sam's looking down at him and Dean makes a mental note to get more goddamn pie and stew and burgers and anything else he can think of to cook into Sam because he doesn't like the way the shadows make his face look so thin. He's not sure the trials have entirely left Sam's system. He reserves the right to spy on and manhandle (if necessary) his brother as much as he likes until he's figured it out either way. 

And it looks like Kevin's got the same idea. He's got one hand tightly twisted in Sam's shirt, yanking him close so they're face to face. 'How can you -? Sam, nothing's worth your life,' he says fiercely. 'Not one damn thing. You're always saving the fucking world -'

'You've got me confused with Dean,' Sam says in a low voice.

Kevin makes an angry noise in the back of his throat and says _'Never,'_ and before Dean quite knows what's happening Kevin's got Sam backed up against the doorframe and is kissing him like something out of Gone With The Wind. 

Dean stares, utterly poleaxed, kind of jealous, mentally applauding Kevin for not putting up with Sam's emo bullshit, and, awkwardly but predictably, starting to get turned on. Footsteps echoing through the room startle him back to reality though, and - oh shit - alert the two lovebirds in the doorway as well. Kevin's head turns in the direction of the new intruder, but Sam's gaze zeroes straight in on Dean in his hidey-hole. 

Dean freezes and does his best to Jedi-mind-trick Sam, but it's never worked before and it's not working now. Sam just raises an eyebrow at him. He always knows when Dean's watching him with someone.

'I'm sorry,' Cas says awkwardly when he comes into view and realises he's clearly interrupted a Moment. 'I was just looking for -'

Dean leaves, silently, before anything can get weirder. 

Sam comes after him a couple hours later, after dinner, when everyone else has gone to bed but let's face it, Winchesters don't quite understand normal sleep patterns. 'Is this gonna be weird?' he asks, hands in his pockets. Dean decides he really, really doesn't like the way his shirt hangs so loose on him. 

'Has it been weird before?' Dean asks, shrugging. He's never thought it was weird. What he and Sam do together and what they do with other people, that's … it's like apples and oranges, chalk and cheese. They're not the same, but that doesn't mean they're mutually exclusive. 'Does he know? About us?'

Sam makes a face. 'He … kind of guessed. Also he thinks you're banging Cas as well, in the interests of full disclosure.'

'That must have been a fun conversation,' Dean says, because he knows Sam thinks that he should have made a move on Cas ages ago, and he hasn't. 'What did you tell him?'

'That it's 'complicated',' Sam says, rolling his eyes. It's what Dean's always told him, every time he's tried to play matchmaker. He sits down heavily on Dean's bed and when he sees the split-second of relief that crosses his face Dean's mind is made up - Sam's not going anywhere tonight. 'Which kind of sums up everything, really.'

'The only person I'm banging right now is you, you know that,' Dean says, sitting down next to him. 'Everything else is … it's _too_ complicated, Sam.'

'Yeah, and I'm easy,' Sam jokes, knocking his shoulder into Dean's. 'Well, for you I am.'

'You putting out for Kevin yet?' Dean asks, sliding a hand onto Sam's thigh. 

Sam kind of smiles at him. 'Haven't exactly had the chance, yet,' he says. 'And, y'know.'

'Complicated,' Dean agrees, starting to gently push Sam back onto the bed. 'Yeah, I know.'

See, there have been years' worth of people who don't get Dean and Sam. One-night stands who took one look at the shared motel room and changed their minds. Potential high-school prom dates who got 'a weird vibe' off the pair of them and told their girlfriends and it all ended in nasty gossip and Sam sitting outside the prom venue in his suit with a fifth of whiskey and Dean just to spite them all. 

Lisa didn't get it. Cassie never knew. Dean's pretty certain Sam never told Amelia either. Jess … Dean thinks Jess figured it out, or Sam told her, and she still wanted Sam to come home so … So maybe she would have been okay with it, but most people …

Dean and Sam … that's for life. But that doesn't mean they don't want to let other people in, sometimes. When they meet the right ones, anyway.

Sam pulls Dean on top of him and smiles properly. 'Let's do something simple, then.'

Dean kisses him, because he can't not. 'Kevin was right, you know,' he says. 

'About what?' Sam asks, mouthing at Dean's throat.

'It wasn't worth your life.'

***

Dean rolls out of bed at six am because that's when his body tells him to, leaving Sam behind mumbling into the one pillow. He pads into the kitchen, where Cas is staring at the refrigerator like it's holding the secrets of the universe. 

'Hey, Cas,' Dean says. 'You okay?'

'I'm hungry,' he says, not looking up from the fridge. 'And I know that it is customary to eat in the mornings, but I'm not sure what food I should have.' He does look up then, and Dean can't tell if he's pissy or tired or confused. So, pretty typical Cas, then. 'And I can't work out why that is even bothering me. Surely it doesn't matter? I just need sustenance. Anything would do. But I can't decide.'

'When in doubt, bacon,' says Dean, elbowing Cas out of the way because existential crises are more Sam's forte but breakfast is something he understands. He gets this warm surge of something in his gut when he's this close to Cas. Has done for a long while now. And he knows what Sam says he should do about that but he's never been quite sure enough, or it's never been the moment, and it sure as shit isn't the right moment to say something when the person you want to say it to has just had a pretty-literally life-changing experience. 

Cas is vulnerable right now. So Dean isn't gonna make a move, he's gonna make breakfast. 'The answer is always bacon,' he adds, off Cas's quizzical look.

'You say it like I should have known that,' Cas says, stepping back and letting Dean work. 'How should I have known that?'

'You shouldn't,' says Kevin from the doorway. He's scrubbing his eyes. He also really badly needs to shave - or at least decide he's gonna rock a beard and do the thing properly. 'It's only the default option if you're from a handful of Westernised countries and don't care about your cholesterol level.'

'Someone doesn't want breakfast,' Dean remarks, yanking everything that looks fry-able out of the fridge.

'Hey, I didn't say _I_ was worried about my cholesterol,' says Kevin, sidling further into the kitchen. 

'Good,' Dean retorts, foraging for a frying pan. 'Otherwise I'd have to throw you out. In this secret lair we eat bacon or else.'

'Bacon?' Sam says hopefully, looming in the doorway more than Kevin did but not looking much more put-together. 

'Let me guess,' Dean says, grabbing the carton of eggs. 'On pancakes with maple syrup, right, you freak of nature?'

'Oh, because the fried reproductive cells of chickens are so self-evidently appropriate for breakfast,' Sam fires back, but he goes to the pantry to pull out the flour for pancake batter by himself. Damn straight. Dean only makes pancakes on the most special of occasions. 

'Maple syrup is basically tree blood,' Dean points out, waving the spatula at him. 'At least I don't have to drill a hole in a chicken every time I want an egg.'

'No, you just buy thinly-sliced pigs to go with them.'

'Hey, you wanted bacon too, Gigantor, with tree blood on top.'

'Are you both twelve?' Kevin asks, mouth twitching like he wants to smile but also like he wants to make a Mom Face. 

'If I'm twelve, he's eight,' Dean points out. 'And a tree vampire.'

'Oh my God, give it a rest,' Sam huffs. 

'Trees don't have blood,' Cas chimes in, looking confused and also like he's really tired of being confused. 'Dean and Sam are fully grown, and I am aware that there is a lot of context and probably subtext behind much of this conversation that I don't understand, which means that my observations are incorrect or meaningless, but I'm not sure how else I'm supposed to participate, and I want to participate.'

Sam somehow manages to look guilty while flipping pancakes. 'Sorry, Cas,' he says. 'We didn't mean to leave you out. We'll stop,' he adds.

'I need to learn the context,' Cas says. 'Now that I am human, or an approximation of one.'

Dean starts to arrange plates full of bacon and eggs and fried tomatoes, because now this is turning into a conversation full of context and subtext that he'd rather pretend he didn't understand.

Breakfast shuts everyone up eventually, which is a blessing. Dean has Sam plastered against his side along one end of the kitchen table, which isn't really big enough for four. But then the big map-table in the war room is way too big for four, and no-one seems to be in the mood to move anyway. If the occasional nudge of Sam's knee against his and Kevin's amazingly innocent, attentive expression are anything to go by, Dean suspects some footsie is going on under the table. 

Cas keeps meeting his eyes and looking away, which is new and different and makes that warm feeling flutter back into Dean's belly. And he volunteers to help Dean do the dishes and Sam and Kevin make themselves scarce pretty fast after that. 

Cas has clearly observed dishes being done in the past but not put a great deal of thought into the mechanics of doing them. Not like he makes a mess, but he doesn't have that sort of intuitive dish-doing logic, like about doing the cleanest things first so that you don't have to change the water too often, or that you should leave a bit of room in the tub so you can top up the hot water if you need to. Dean just gets a dishcloth and does the drying up and lets him work it out himself. He's a smart cookie, and he loves efficiency - he'll figure it out. 

'Dean, what happens now?' Cas asks eventually, letting the water out of the sink. 'Now that I'm human, and there are still things to hunt. How will this work?'

Dean turns away to hang up the dishcloth rather than meet Cas's eyes. 'We've still got work to do,' he says. 'You and me and Sam, and Kevin too, I guess. Nothing has to change. We'll sort everything else out when we get to it.'

Cas is a smart cookie. He'll figure it out.

***

'So, you and Sam are kind of a package deal, huh?' Kevin asks, materialising in a lurker's pose in the doorway of the war room and scaring the living shit out of Dean, not that Dean would admit it. 

He puts down the book he was leafing through, trying to find something, _anything_ about creatures-turned-human and how they'd fared afterwards, and shrugs. 'That a problem?' he asks, instead of answering one way or the other. 

'If it was I wouldn't have even bothered asking,' Kevin points out. He comes into the room properly and drops into a free seat at the big map table. 'How much of a package deal?' he adds.

Dean makes a face, because that's a complicated question - they've been everything from Don't Ask, Don't Tell to full-on sharing in the past. 'Depends. Kind of a sliding scale, I guess. But I tell you one thing straight up. You try and get between us and I will end you.' It could be a joke. It's not. He keeps his voice level and keeps eye-contact with Kevin and he can tell Kevin gets it immediately. 

'Pretty sure you'd have to get in line behind Sam,' Kevin says, offering a sharp grin. 'Dude, believe me, that is not going to happen.' In a quieter voice he adds, 'You know I'll look after him, right?'

It should be the funniest thing Dean's ever heard - this college dropout ten years his junior offering to take care of Sam, who has killed more evil things than he's had hot dinners, but it isn't, because Kevin's expression is deadly serious and Sam is still recovering from being the supernatural equivalent of an H-bomb, and Dean for once in his life thinks that maybe someone else actually _understands_ what taking care of Sam actually means. 'Yeah,' Dean says. 'Well. I know you'll try, anyway.' He shrugs one-shouldered. 'Sammy's not good at being looked after.'

Kevin snorts. 'Point taken.'

They sit together in the quiet for a few moments longer and then Kevin pulls over a stack of the books Dean's been trawling through. 'These for Cas or Crowley?' he asks after peering at the one that's open on top.

'Either. Both,' Dean says. 'I figure they both have kind of the same issue right now.'

'You know Cas was pretty much halfway there anyway, right?' Kevin says, leafing through the top book on the stack - Dean can't remember its title. 'Fallen, I mean.'

Dean's jaw clenches at that because he can't let himself flinch. _Lucifer_ fell. He doesn't like the idea that Cas is walking that same path. 

Kevin's not watching him, though, he's still reading. 'I mean, all it really takes to fall is to disobey, right?'

Dean clears his throat, totally uncomfortable, and Kevin looks up. 'Hey, I mean - look. I read the tablet, okay? I'm not saying he did wrong, or … anything bad, Dean. He _chose_. That's part of what makes Heaven just as crappy a team as Hell most days - angels got just as few options as demons do.'

'You think I don't know that?'

'I'm just saying, being fallen only makes Cas bad if you read _their_ rulebook,' Kevin shunts the books aside and puts his hands on the tabletop like a peace gesture. 'I think you know that anyway, though.'

'It just gets me that after everything he went through, it wasn't even his choice,' Dean says. 'Metatron threw them out. All of them. Or tricked Cas into doing it, whatever. He didn't fall, man, he was pushed. They all were.'

'Maybe you're right,' Kevin says. 'But dude, he was standing on the edge ready to jump anyway.' He shrugs at Dean, grins. 'Trust me, I get the shooting script, deleted scenes, and sometimes even the director's commentary.' He gets up, pokes Dean in the chest. 'I'm telling you, Dean. Angels aren't supposed to choose things, but Cas has chosen you every time. So you need to put these books away and stop hiding from him.'

'Worked for you with Sammy, huh? The direct approach?' Dean says, refusing to lean away from Kevin. 

'If there's one thing I know,' Kevin says, 'if there's one absolute thing I know now that I didn't know before Heaven tapped me, it's that when you get the chance at something you want, you go for it.'

He looks Dean straight in the eye, and deep down Dean can see the same expression he sees Sam get sometimes, the same one Cas wears, the one Bobby and Ellen and Dad used to get, the one where you know you're in a warzone with no way out but at least it's not raining bombs right this second. And he's smiling over it.

'Man, kid, you got old fast,' Dean says, and Kevin laughs.

'Not old,' he says. 'Wise. Kinda appropriate for a prophet, huh?'

Dean snorts, pushes away from the table so he can get up. Kevin steps back and smirks at him. 'Finally, someone who can out-smartass Sam.'

Kevin ducks his head like he's shy, but he says, 'So, I got your approval then?'

Dean rolls his eyes. As if it was ever his decision. 'Yeah, sure. Welcome aboard.'

***

Cas finds him in the war room a few hours later, carrying a plate of sandwiches that look like he made them. 

'Custom dictates that we should eat at this time of day,' he says, putting the plate down. 'I'm told that sandwiches are appropriate. I suppose it's because of their ease of preparation during the most active part of the day.' He sits down right next to Dean, despite the massive table, and Dean's pulse quickens. 

'Something like that,' Dean says. He doesn't know whether to move closer or push away, but he's got Sammy and Kevin's advice sticking in his head. 'Does it have to have a reason?'

'Things generally do,' Cas points out. 'Or a cause, at the very least.' He picks up a sandwich. It loses a bit of lettuce - good riddance, as far as Dean's concerned - but he bites into it, unconcerned. 

Dean does the same, because he is hungry and watching Cas eat is probably a bit weird. He realises he's going a bit over the top about the food thing but he's never had a kitchen before and it's like … look, he likes taking care of people, okay? Feeding them's a start. 

The sandwich is actually pretty good. 

'Thanks,' he says when he finishes it. 'Cas, thanks.'

'It's not so different, is it?' Cas says, putting the rest of his sandwich down. 'Being human. Being an angel was much the same as this -' he waves a hand at their surroundings. 'Daily rituals, tasks to perform, a purpose to work towards. But at the same time, everything has changed. I'm in this - this body, actually trapped in it, not just riding along. I have to obey physical laws like gravity instead of Divine ones. And I am alone.'

'You're not -'

'I am, Dean. Even when I tuned it out I was still aware of Heaven, of my brothers and sisters' presence and existence, all the time. Not any more. I am alone in so many ways for the first time.' He smiles, though, and it's fragile, and he reaches out and puts his hand over Dean's on the table top. 'And yet here, in this place with you and Sam, and Kevin, I don't feel it so much.'

'Cas ...'

'You and Sam - you share a closeness that I sometimes find myself envying,' Cas says in a low voice. He looks up at Dean from under his lashes, which is dirty pool of the worst kind. 'I thought I could never share it, even though you and I are bonded in ways that transcend so much else. I thought that human rules precluded it.'

'Sammy and me … our 'closeness' is kind of … precluded by human rules a lot of the time too,' Dean points out when he manages to get his brain back into gear. 

Cas ignores him, smiles lopsidedly and keeps talking. 'But new information has come my way, that makes me hope that maybe … there could be space for me too.'

Dean kisses him then because of fucking course there's space for him, of course he's welcome, of _course_ he can share. He's _family_.

'Well it's about goddamn time,' says Sam from the doorway, and Dean goes to jerk away like he's been caught with his hands in the cookie jar but Cas just makes a sweet noise against his mouth and holds him in place with his hands caught at the back of Dean's head, carding through his hair. 

Sam laughs. Dean hears his footsteps walking away but he doesn't see him go because he's too busy with his eyes shut, learning Cas's taste and pace and heartbeat under his palm. 

***

There's one couch in this entire underground mansion-military base hybrid, and wouldn't you know it, it's only big enough for three. On the other hand, no couch is really big enough for Sam, who spreads out like an octopus and who also, typically, manages to get there first because Kevin and Dean are trying to teach Cas how to make popcorn and he keeps getting so intrigued by the physics that it burns. 

They sent Sam off to pick something from the tragically-small library of filmreels that isn't home-made demon snuff movies. Something with a plot, is what Dean asked for. Something made up. God knows what they're going to end up with.

By the time the rest of them get there Sam's lounging all over the couch, both arms along the back of it taking up pretty much the whole length, and Dean has to push his way in and shove Sam over to the side. 

'Quit hogging the comfy seats, Sam,' he says, piling into Sam's side to keep him in line. 'C'mon guys, I guess we just gotta squish up.'

Somehow he thinks it's going to be awkward, but Cas just snuggles right on up, and Kevin ends up half perched on the arm of the couch and half - mostly, really - on Sam's lap. He does try to avoid sitting on all of them but it's obvious that being curled up with his legs under him can't be that comfortable, and after about ten minutes Cas stretches across and hooks Kevin's ankles and pulls until he's sort of stretched out over them all. He pats Kevin's foot in a satisfied way and pecks Dean on the cheek. 

Sam slings his arm back around Dean's shoulder like he's making a point, but unless Dean's very much mistaken he's kind of stroking the back of Cas's neck with the tips of his fingers. 

Dean doesn't actually work out what's going on in the movie because he falls asleep halfway through, under Sam's arm and with Cas up against him and Kevin over the top, warm and safe and content, and feeling for the first time in a long time like maybe tomorrow won't be so bad after all.

***

They're all woken up in the morning by Crowley banging on the wall of the dungeon, rattling his chains and yelling hoarsely for 'a bloody bathroom break, you pack of marshmallow-arsed incestuous fairies, I can hear you out there, with your sweet nothings and your snoring and your saliva noises -'

He's _probably_ not a demon any more, is the general consensus, (vocabulary aside) but then again, like everything else round here, it's kind of complicated.


End file.
